NO RETURN

The stories move on. Sam’s team of investigators are tasked with another violent mystery to unwind before more bodies appear. ROPE BREAK will soon be released with chilling, page turning tales of bad guys and those that get caught in their path.

It started bad and then got worse. The space between life and death can fill in an instant when fate reaches that point of…

“Stop!” the young voice blurted from behind Flathead. In a quick turn, he rose and spun to his left, pulled down on the safety and fired two shots into the stunned face of Mattie standing barefoot next to the dining room table. The room shook from the packed in sound of the explosions and Mattie crumbled to the floor, shaking from muscle spasms and gurgling through the blood trying to breathe. Debbie let out a loud cry and burst into tears at the twitching shape helplessly convulsing and struggling to live.

McCall froze as he watched the kid drop, looked at Toby and then bent down and pointed the pistol into Debbie’s face. She stared into the orange plastic of Flathead’s goggles and spit a glob square into the space between his eyes. He flinched even though the plastic blocked it and then brought the pistol down onto her face opening a gash on the bridge of her nose with the blow.

“Bitch! Where’s the rest of the money?” he reached forward and grabbed her right breast with his free hand and roughly twisted the soft flesh through her shirt and lightweight bra. She screamed again and tried to pull free, but he turned it harder, dragging her down to the floor where she started sobbing in pain.

“It’s in the freezer, please just take it and stop hurting her,” Hank managed to say between his own sobs. “It’s all there.”

McCall heard him, but didn’t stop. Toby hadn’t moved from his spot near the door of the mud room and now quickly went to the freezer and opened it up. There he found four paper lunch bags sitting on top of plastic bags of meat and boxes of green beans. He looked in the first one and saw green bills and knew he had what they were looking for. In his excitement and the confusion of how quickly McCall had become so enraged and violent, he grabbed the bags and jumped through the door and back into the kitchen. “Flathead, I got it. Four bags of cash, let’s go!” Poor Toby didn’t even realize what he had done.

McCall let loose of Debbie and just stood up over the couple looking at Toby. “You dickhead. You got a big mouth.” Toby couldn’t see McCall’s eyes and would have been very afraid if he had been able to. McCall swung the .45 down to Debbie and pulled the trigger.